Golf Lessons

1/ How many golf lessons under different coaches have you taken?
2/ Have you finally got yr problems fixed and satisfied with the progress you make?

let me try to be the first who reply ..

1/ 2 different golf lesson under 2 different coaches
2/ let me just say that i know what problem need to be fix, but unfortunately no enough time to go range to fix it ...

too embarrassing to say

pippin wrote:

too embarrassing to say

LOL! You just did!

IGT wrote:

1/ How many golf lessons under different coaches have you taken?
2/ Have you finally got yr problems fixed and satisfied with the progress you make?

Hi IGT, not trying to be smart here and not trying to upset your thread, can i pose another question...

Pro's

1) How many students have come to you to improve?
2) How many did?
3) How many actually listened to you and did the drills you prescribed... (as you prescribed)...
4) How many did not listen to tips from their friends while getting lessons?
5) How many if struggling with drills prescribed, made another appointment rather than listen to friends or just go back to old swing?
6) Even given a practice plan in writing, how many actually followed it?

I could go on mate, the point is if you are ill you go to a Doctor he gives you medicine, if you don't take the medicine or don't take as prescribed your illness will likely not go away.

If you don't positive practice, you will not improve...

1/ I personally attended 2 lessons (the fees were about equal). Both were certified coaches; but the latter's teaching methods were so much effective and practical that i could easily work with.

2/ I only have myself to blame for not being disciplined enough to do the follow-up practice.

shorthitter wrote:

IGT wrote:

1/ How many golf lessons under different coaches have you taken?
2/ Have you finally got yr problems fixed and satisfied with the progress you make?

Hi IGT, not trying to be smart here and not trying to upset your thread, can i pose another question...

Pro's

1) How many students have come to you to improve?
2) How many did?
3) How many actually listened to you and did the drills you prescribed... (as you prescribed)...
4) How many did not listen to tips from their friends while getting lessons?
5) How many if struggling with drills prescribed, made another appointment rather than listen to friends or just go back to old swing?
6) Even given a practice plan in writing, how many actually followed it?

I could go on mate, the point is if you are ill you go to a Doctor he gives you medicine, if you don't take the medicine or don't take as prescribed your illness will likely not go away.

If you don't positive practice, you will not improve...

Yes. I figure 1st thing 1st, it's the student-coach chemistry or collaboration. I think there is no good coach or bad coach; but only the coach-students that work together effectively or ineffectively.

2nd i.e. how determined and persistant we are to make progress.

Bro there are definitely bad coaches,the same as there are bad accountants or builders or plumbers car dealers real estate agents or any number of industries..

Don't misunderstand my post I am not putting the blame on the students by any means..

I am trying to say, if you go to a coach, and as you say you have chemistry then if he prescribes properly, and if you follow properly you cannot not improve....

But as in all industries there are also coaches that offer discounts, are untrained and don't know what to prescribe which brings whole industry down.

Before you invest in lessons talk to the Pro. Ask for references if they are any good that should not be an issue.

Ask for a trial lesson, a good coach will have no problem investing time in you before you invest your hard earned money in them...

Before I get flamed by the usual I am on salary now I am not actively looking for students, however if someone really wants to improve we have the best facilities...

Steady lah!

I've had 3 coaches since 2009. Total of 25 hrs. Plus I take an hour of local pro lesson whenr I travel. Start from total beginner. 10 hrs pc package, and 3 x 5hrs tune up focusing on different parts like fixing pushslice, short game, putting, bunker. Shorthitter was my last coach. He taught me a dependable bunker shot and fixed my iron play at the time (I was digging a lot, shanking).

Think my handicap is ard the avg golfer per usga. So yeah I'm thankful with my coaches. bcoz I can.only afford time for two rounds of golf a.month, practice even less. Dun expect much. Play bogey game, tcss, lose to buayas/buayees also enjoy since I only play ten cent.Vegas hahaha

Nice! It says "we only get out of something what we put into it"

Dear IGT,

Wrt your questions

I don't have coaches if u discount those fm golf channel.

But I am satisfied with my std of play....due to my low expectation.




But I m thinking of increasing my expectation.....so hoping to get a coach soon.

Duval_S wrote:

Dear IGT,

Wrt your questions

I don't have coaches if u discount those fm golf channel.

But I am satisfied with my std of play....due to my low expectation.




But I m thinking of increasing my expectation.....so hoping to get a coach soon.

Many of us belongs to this category. Following GC, downloading videos, getting tips from the better ones..... I figure we hardly get the problems fixed, rather we push ourselves working around the flaws. Without right guidance and coaching aint easy.

It's all comes down to one's expectation.Getting coaching will definitely help your game.

I find this site is very informative http://www.perfectgolfswingreview.net/
, just for sharing. We can read when flights jammed.

IGT wrote:

1/ How many golf lessons under different coaches have you taken?
2/ Have you finally got yr problems fixed and satisfied with the progress you make?

I like this question.

1/ How many golf lessons under different coaches have you taken?

When I started, being a non-athletic bookworm sort of childhood, I knew I needed a lot of help. So I sought help from professional sources.

I had 4 different coaches, after about 10 months of trying to learn myself.

First coach, 5 lessons. Scottish. I stopped because he spent half the session telling me war stories, who he caddied for, who he played with. He still owes me change for 50 bucks because he did not have change.

Second coach, another Scottish. About 3-4 lessons. Stopped when he could not renew his work permit and got kicked out of the country. Knowledgeable, but he looked at his students as cash cows.

Third coach, local Chinese teaching pro. Very nice guy. Renewed my lesson packs a couple of times. Stopped when he ran out of things to teach me, ie. the lessons began to repeat. As he was running a pro shop, he kept taking calls during a lesson. But nice and friendly guy, relaxed and easy teaching approach, and would not hesitate to recommend beginners to him. Tremendous gentleman. Even lent me his BMW when my car ran out of fuel.

Fourth coach, local Chinese pro. Highly experienced and knowledgeable but got a personality problem. Fell out with almost all his ex students eventually. I was one of his biggest supporter. He even counted on me to help out with his students when he had a few sessions going on at the same time. Stopped when he picked a fight with me too.

2/ Have you finally got yr problems fixed and satisfied with the progress you make?

Problems fixed, yes, to a degree. Quite easy to fix a slicing beginner coming from over the top.

Satisfied with progress, no. And not for lack of listening to the coach's teaching, or practicing either. Spent so much time at the range I was the range's best customer.

Thinking back, I chuckle when I realise I had to go through many coaches before I was told about flat left wrist, ball first impact. Fundamentals like that.

As for more advanced concepts, well such as D-plane, Hitting vs swinging. One plane vs two plane, etc, well... Lets just say I am thankful for my books and the internet.

To be fair, when I look back on the videos of my swing (I have videos going back to day 1 when I started), I can definitely see progress made.

I have come to realise, I also see fundamental flaws left unaddressed after so many coaches and so many lessons. One of my coaches have even said, every time he fixes something, he will insert another new flaw. That way, the students keep coming back and cash continues to flow. And he said it in front of me about another student. I am not kidding.

Another coach said, "I can build a bungalow from working on that swing."

No intention to tar an entire industry with my experience. I am sure there are dedicated coaches with admirable values whose main desire is to see their students improve.

But since the question was asked, I am sharing the experience I had when I first started. From my small sampling size of 4, I would say I got lucky 1 out of 4, ie my 3rd coach.

Btw, this was in M'sia, so S'pore may be different.

Would I recommend that beginners get a coach, absolutely, I still would. It's almost unavoidable to pick up flaws when you work on it yourself and those flaws will be tough to correct later.

But choose wisely to get a coach right for you.

Nice honest sharing.. thx for it! Appreciated...

actually taking lessons from GC/youtube isn't such a huge evil. It's not as if the pros on the videos are throwing bad advice. These are the same pros as pros in country clubs/ranges who give lessons individually. Some of them are world class pros who teach the biggest names in golf. It's not as if say a pro in MBGC will give a different advice to fix a slice than Chuck Cook from youtube.

The problem with self learning thru GC/internet is root cause identification and the different methods/philosophies in golf. The pros on the video don't see your swing and thus they cannot determine exactly what's wrong with your swing. They can however explain the possible causes of a slice for instance and solutions for each cause. The question is, can we determine what's wrong with our swing ourselves? Note however there are some pros who accept videos from the public and provide comment/feedback e.g. Brady Riggs at Golf Magazine.

About different swing styles and methods. If we follow different pros on telly/channel you may get different, sometime conflicting advice. My suggestion is stick to one philosophy. I wouldn't switch from Dave Stockton videos to Stan Utley videos on short game for example. Just watch Luke Donald short game masterclass and Phill Mickelson short game videos. Different methods. One a slider, the other a digger.

Anyways, so many golfers (especially in the past) learn from reading Ben Hogan's 5 fundamentals book and Jack Nicklaus' Golf My Way book. What's so different about learning golf from a book (in 2D illustrations) then than learning from a video channel (with real 3D illustrations, and in slow mo) now? Even now, most top coaches still sell instruction DVDs too right?

If done right, some of us can benefit from self learning. Yes there are obvious limitations but I wouldn't discount the videos altogether.

IGT wrote:

Duval_S wrote:

Dear IGT,

Wrt your questions

I don't have coaches if u discount those fm golf channel.

But I am satisfied with my std of play....due to my low expectation.




But I m thinking of increasing my expectation.....so hoping to get a coach soon.

Many of us belongs to this category. Following GC, downloading videos, getting tips from the better ones..... I figure we hardly get the problems fixed, rather we push ourselves working around the flaws. Without right guidance and coaching aint easy.

It's all comes down to one's expectation.Getting coaching will definitely help your game.

I find this site is very informative http://www.perfectgolfswingreview.net/
, just for sharing. We can read when flights jammed.

Thanks IGT for sharing, very good site for reading...

Duval_S wrote:

I think those who go for lessons are better player than those who does not.

@ PushSlice: I don go for lesson. we discuss strokes on 8/31 based on my above statement and also based on the recommendation by most coaches.

unilateral statements such as the above will not hold value on 8/31.

I thank Derek for MGK's peer review handicap tables. and you need to submit more scores

Are we playing in the morning on 31?

Well said, Lee. I did follow some of your threads and know how technical you could be .

I came across many coaches back in Mal still lack of professionalism and ineffective. Many of them seem much better being a salesman promoting golf gears/shafts.

shorthitter wrote:

IGT wrote:

1/ How many golf lessons under different coaches have you taken?
2/ Have you finally got yr problems fixed and satisfied with the progress you make?

Hi IGT, not trying to be smart here and not trying to upset your thread, can i pose another question...

Pro's

1) How many students have come to you to improve?
2) How many did?
3) How many actually listened to you and did the drills you prescribed... (as you prescribed)...
4) How many did not listen to tips from their friends while getting lessons?
5) How many if struggling with drills prescribed, made another appointment rather than listen to friends or just go back to old swing?
6) Even given a practice plan in writing, how many actually followed it?

I could go on mate, the point is if you are ill you go to a Doctor he gives you medicine, if you don't take the medicine or don't take as prescribed your illness will likely not go away.

If you don't positive practice, you will not improve...

Shorthitter nailed it.

If the coach is good, he / she should be able to connect with almost any student and have the knowledge and tools to get the student moving the right direction, or at least understanding the right direction. Coach should also understand the best methods of practice (I refer to it as deep practice or deliberate practice) and make sure the student also understands.

Students job (ideally) would be to practice in the prescribed way and only seek advice or clarification from the coach, not other golfers.

@Lee36328 thks for sharing your personal experience. Very sincere post. Thumbs up!